Impromptu Initiation Day for Team VERT
by Gastrolizard
Summary: First meeting between the members of, and the Initiation challenge for team VERT. Hope you enjoy this short story, as it's told from Viridian's POV, like it normally will be. I'll be mixing things up now and again with the POVs, but not during the middle of stories.
1. Welcome to Team VERT

"Viridian, let me just tell you now, that this isn't our normal method of choosing teams. Normally, during initiation, whomever you make eye contact with first will be one of your teammates, and teams can be formed from there. However, you and your teammates applied a bit later than normal, so therefore we will just work with who we have. Let me introduce you to Electra Impulse, Rhea Citrine, and Tacitus Dartmouth, while we're on our way to your improvised initiation."

"Hello everyone, it's good to meet you." I say it with confidence, to let everyone know, but the guy who I presume is Tacitus doesn't buy it.

"Wait a damn second there, Professor. You seriously expect me to be on the same team as this guy? I don't even know how he operates in the battlefield, and you seriously want me to believe that he,"

Tacitus gives a me a dirty look while pointing a finger,

"is capable of running a team?"

I'm practically on the verge of choking the guy right now, but Ozpin stops me before I can say or do anything about it.  
"Tacitus, you've been leading a group for so long now, you might've forgotten what it's like to be under the command of another. Viridian has as much experience in combat, if not more, than you do. If he is to be your leader, then you must at least give him a chance."

The thug scowled, and mumbled,

"This kid better be good, or I'm gonna have to run this joint myself."

"Hello Viridian, I'm Electra."

"Glad to see someone isn't negative from the beginning. Nice to meet you. Now, there's one question I need to ask you before we head out for initiation. Why in the world are your veins glowing?"

Electra blushed and looked away for a moment. When she turned back, she said,  
"Long story short, I survived an electrical explosion, which infused my body with Dust, causing the vein glow. Essentially, I'm a walking generator now."

Wow, a girl with control over electricity? That should prove very useful when in a fight. Let's just hope that she has some control over it, because I'm assuming that it's very volatile.

"That's very interesting, and I'd really like to hear the full story later, but we're running short on time till initiation. I'm not sure where this van is taking us, but I'm certain that there will be fighting."

"Umm… Hi, Viridian. My name's Rhea."

"Are you… a faunus? Your teeth look incredibly sharp!"

"Yes, I am, in fact, faunus. Before you say anything else, let me tell you something. All my life I've been treated differently because of my heritage. Please don't be one of those people. Treat me like anyone else, if you would."

"That's quite the odd request, but I'll make sure that you are treated no different than anyone else. I'll tell the rest of the team to treat you normally too, okay?"

"That would be nice, thank you. Where do you think that we're headed?"

"If I had to guess, probably the Emerald Forest. That's usually where they initiate the students, if I'm not mistaken. The creatures of Grimm roam around, so you'd better be combat ready if we're to even make it out of the van."

"Don't you worry about me, I can handle myself quite well."

After taking a look out of the window in the back, Tacitus said,

"We've stopped. Let's see how tough you chuckleheads are. The Grimm will most likely try to attack us on sight, so if you see one, don't hesitate to let me kill it, alright?"

"Shut your damn mouth, Tacitus, and get ready. We have a bumpy road ahead of us, and if we're to make it out of here, we'll need to work together. That means no bitching, no splitting up, and no mistakes."

As the van doors open into the verdant mass of trees, we walk out and right up to Ozpin, who is standing with a scroll in his hand.

"The initiation test for you four, is to find your way to the monument, and bring your pieces back here. Oh, and one more thing. Don't die, or I'll owe Glynda a couple hundred dollars. Good luck!"

He walks back to the van, and drives away, leaving us here in the middle of the forest. Oh boy, this will be fun.


	2. Snake in the Grass

"Well, isn't that a fantastic mission. 'Bring your pieces back here.' That sure is descriptive."

Tacitus walked around the spot where Ozpin dropped us off, kicking rocks around with his foot.

"What did I say back in the van? No bitching. Cut that out, and let's get moving. There must be sign of where to go somewhere."

I signal the group to follow, and I lead them into the thick of the forest.  
After a while of walking, I noticed a little gap in the trees in the distance. Tacitus noticed it first, and blurted out,

"Was there a forest fire or something? Look at all of the burnt tree stumps. I can guarantee you that someone was here before us."

Baffled at how he saw that from so far away, I said,  
"How in the world did you…"

"Semblance, as the teachers like to call it. I have eagle eyes, and it allows me to see much farther than normal. It does make my eyes hurt a bit, and also makes them turn a pitch black, like this!"

His pupils turned dilated, and grew until they completely consumed his eyes. This freaked out Rhea, and she said,  
"That's really freaky, and I would like it if you'd stop, Tacitus."

Seeing an opportunity to tease her a bit, he got close up to her face with his eagle vision activated, and mocked,

"Stop what? Oh, you mean THIS?"

I had to intervene, because those two were making too much noise for my liking.

"Tacitus, stop teasing Rhea, damnit. I thought I saw something move, and we can't be ambushed while you two are screwing around."

"Yes, Tacitus, listen to Viridian, and please only do that when we don't notice, okay? It's really scary!"

Tacitus chuckled, and looked back at the clearing in front of us. Stopping dead in his tracks, he says,

"Oh shit, don't move any closer, guys. There's a big ass snake in that clearing, and I think we should try to get the jump on it."

We creeped a bit closer to the clearing, and there was indeed, a King Taijitu was slithering around, looking for prey.

I signal for Electra and Tacitus to flank, while Rhea and I stay where we are.

"3, 2, 1, GO!"

We all rush toward the enormous Grimm, with Electra being the first into the fray. She had clearly removed her gloves, because she was shooting lighting from her hands! Her damn hands! Her eyes look like they are emitting electricity as well, because they were glowing as much as her hands were. Rhea pulls out two massive machine guns, and started going to town on one of the heads, while Tacitus is busy trying to take down the other. I sat back for a bit, and tried to concentrate. Thanks to my semblance, I'm able to see the weak points of the King Taijitu, and I yell out,

"Guys, stop wasting ammo and energy on it's body! Shoot and stab the heads instead!"

I shoot out the middle blade of my left 2TGD, and it hits right where I want it to. The weapons resemble triple-blades kataras, and the center blade can fire off on a lead, pulling me toward the person, or vice versa. The knife digs deep into the snake's flesh, pulling me in a flash toward the side of the head. Punching the eye as much as I can with the other dagger, I leave the thing bleeding and wounded before it throws me off.

"Damn, Viridian. You did some good damage there! Keep up the good work, and we should have this thing dead in a couple minutes. Come here, you dumbass garden hose! Come and get me!"

Tacitus taunts the snake with a couple shots with his semi-auto sniper rifle, which can turn into a short-handled glaive. He's quite the god shot with it, I may add, and he can spin that glaive faster than anyone I've ever seen!

The King Taijitu lashes out with it's black head, which Rhea and Tacitus use as their opportunity to jump on, and fill it with bullets.

"Whoa there, giant snake! Don't you want an eyeful of bullets?"

Tacitus puts the end of his rifle right up to the Grimm's eye, and blasts it with a couple of shots. Rhea, on the other hand, calmly fires her dual Belt-Fed Heavy Machine Guns into it's other eye, making blood spurt everywhere. Electra is lunged at by the white head, and she manages to shoot a bolt of electricity down it's throat before she flips away. Regrouping at in front of the wounded Taijitu, I yell,

"It's badly hurt, so we'd better skin this bastard and get out of here."

Both heads on the gargantuan snake start to wind up for an attack out of desperation, which we take to our advantage. We all jump over the thing as it lunges, and we all prepare for the final blow. I shoot out my daggers, Electra gathers electricity, Rhea's weapons combine to turn into an enormous two-handed axe, and Tacitus's rifle turns into it's glaive form. We all come down onto the King Taijitu at once, with me and Tacitus coming down on the white head, and the girls the black. Both heads are smashed into the dirt, leaving a bloody pile of mush where it once was.

"That was fucking awesome, guys. I seriously think that we may have a thing going here. Let's try to find those pieces, and leave here alive if possible.",

I say as I wipe off some of the snake blood off of my pauldrons.

"That King Taijitu, or whatever, just ate some serious shit. Good work, guys. I know now that you all are a good crew to roll with, so I'll stay. As long as you keep this badassery up, at least."

"Thanks, I do try my hardest."

Rhea says this with a beaming smile, almost radiating with happiness.

"Look at the tracks of the snake. It may have come from the monument where those pieces are, and I think it would be a good idea for us to follow it."

Electra points this out to us, and we all decide to follow her plan to trace the now dead King Taijitu's tracks.


	3. Scorpion in the Clearing

The sidewinding tracks through what felt like miles of forest led us to a small, abandoned stone monument of sorts, which has what looks like to be our pieces on pedestals.

Electra picks one up, and questions,

"Why are they in the form of chess pieces? More importantly, why Bishops?"

Shrugging, Tacitus responds,

"It's probably a metaphor for something. Let's figure that out later, though."

We each grab a piece, and turn back from where we came, but the snake tracks had disappeared!

"What in the hell happened to the tracks?! They were right here!",

I yell this in utter confusion, and I don't even bother to look back to at the spot.

Rhea taps my shoulder, points toward where the tracks once were, and whispers,

"Uhh, Viridian? We may have a problem here."

In it's place, there was a gargantuan scorpion. It was clearly Grimm of origin, and it must've followed the sound of the last battle back to where we are now.

Unsheathing our weapons, we all lunge at the Death Stalker, only to be flung back by it's claws. It lets out an ear piercing sound, and charges back at us.

"Jump it!"

I yell this as we leap over the thing, and it crashes into the already crumbling monument, shattering the stone pedestals.

"I need to find the weak points, give me some cover!"

I concentrate on the Grimm, drowning out the sound of battle as best I could. The eyes and stinger light up when I finally lift my head, and I point them out to my teammates with a loud,

"Tacitus, shoot the stinger! Rhea and Electra, try and go for the eyes!"

Tacitus flips away from the monster, kneels down to one knee, and fires a clearly armor-piercing shot right into the space where the tail and the stinger meet.

"Got the bastard right in his tail, dude! Finish this douchebag of a scorpion off whenever you see fit, unless you'd like us to die, of course!"

I look at him with one of those "seriously?" faces, and fire off both daggers into the thing's stinger, which sever it completely, causing it to puncture the top of it's head.

"It's pinned down! Electra, can you energize Rhea's weapon?"

She stops firing for a moment, turns and says, "I sure can try, but I'm not sure how that'll work out.."

"Just do it! Rhea, prepare to slice this bitch into bits!"

She turns the BFHMGs into the axe, and Electra fires a bolt of electricity straight at it. The weapon glows a bright blue green at the head, and Rhea rushes the immobile Death Stalker, chopping off it's limbs as they try to stop her. When she reaches the head, she screams,

"Die you damned beast!", and starts hacking away in a glorious spectacle of sparks and hunks of scorpion. When she finally makes her way back to us, she falls onto the ground crying.  
Tacitus is ecstatic, however, and congratulates her with,

"HOLY SHIT, RHEA! You're a badass beyond belief! She cut that thing up like it was steak, didn't you see that?!"

"Oh… my…. god…"

Rhea is on the ground sobbing, while Tacitus is jumping around so excited at the fact that we won.

I try to comfort her with,

"What in the world is wrong with you, Rhea? We won the fight, got the pieces, and we're probably going to make it out!"

"It's not that… I just sorta lost myself there for a moment…"

"It's completely fine, Rhea. I don't think less of you because of it, and neither does anyone else on the team."

Electra comes over, hugs Rhea, and says,

"You did very well today, Rhea. I'm honored to have you as a teammate. Also, good calls, Viridian. You saved us a bunch of time, and without those weak spot callouts, I probably wouldn'tve been able to find them myself."

A very large airship landed nearly on top of us, and a walkway shot out of the side.

Professor Ozpin walks out of the interior of the massive ship, and says,

"Congradulations! You all saved me some dignity, and some bet money as well. Good work, team VERT. You will make a fine edition to Beacon, no matter how behind in schoolwork you are!"

"I can't thank you enough for putting us through this, Ozpin."

Tacitus says.

"Seriously though, did you see Rhea like that? She went super-fuckin-saiyan right there!"

"Yes, she did look like she was in the ass-kicking mood when she was attacking the Death Stalker, now didn't she. Well, if you all would board the ship, we can make our way back to our new room, and make sure that the school knows about your presence!"

Rhea looks up from her hands, and says to Ozpin,

"How did I do, Mr. Ozpin? I wasn't too crazy, right?"

He looked back at the sniffling faunus, and chuckled,  
"You did a fantastic job, Rhea. Your parents would be proud. Shall we leave this place?"

Electra turned around to face Ozpin, made a troubled face, and questioned,

"Wait a minute, you said we would be behind on schoolwork?"

We then all turned around, and looked at him with varying expressions. Tacitus looked pissed off, Rhea looked horrified, Electra looked troubled, and I was saddened.

Not the most graceful of starts at Beacon, but we did make it there, for the most part. It was just a challenge to try and get Tacitus calmed down, while trying to comfort Rhea at the same time.

An orphan who is a master of techmaturgy, a girl who can control electricity, a faunus who can dual wield fucking BFHMGs, and a douchebag who snipes.

Who would've thought that we would actually function as a team?


End file.
